


Degenerate

by ChatoyantPenumbra



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Sex, Dream Sex, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sad Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Soft Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Trauma, Wet Dream, basically Dimitri is so haunted by the depravity of his nightmares, that he can't even look Byleth in the eyes for two weeks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 00:55:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21027602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChatoyantPenumbra/pseuds/ChatoyantPenumbra
Summary: For a man like Dimitri, even the best of dreams can shift into twisted nightmares at the most innocent of triggers. What it makes him is a person he cannot live with.





	Degenerate

**Author's Note:**

> Just another warning: THIS FIC CONTAINS NON-CON/RAPE. If this triggers you, PLEASE do not read. None of it actually happens as it's just a nightmare that Dimitri has. No, he's not into it, and no, this is NOT written in a fashion to justify rape. If it makes you uncomfortable please turn back now.

A lone candle burns in the night.

As nothing more than hushed whispers, a pair exchange words at the threshold of a Garreg Mach quarters, before she steps aside to yield his entry.

Questions hang like moving shadows in the air, upon the balconies just outside the threshold and the walls of her room, flickering as though cast by candlelight, dancing ever more when his movement stirs them. 

How many times has he thought of knocking on this door when the cracks along the frame are still illuminated by the gentle flickering of a flame? 

He wonders as his hands guide her cloak from her shoulders, tossing it aside with an effortless movement as he pushes forward into the room. The door closes behind him without so much as a sound.

How many times has he thought of pressing his lips to her skin and taking in the scent of her that captivates him nearly every time she walks past him in their classroom?

His hands meet gently with her hips, and he hears her suck in a shallow breath as the tip of his nose grazes against the slope of her neck. 

He asks himself, finally, how many times he’s thought of it as his hands slide beneath her armored blouse and unravel the ties that hold it together, pulling it at last from her body and revealing the beautiful skin underneath. Her hands clutched to the clothing against his chest tighten, even as he lags to gaze down at her, knowing just how embarrassed it might make her to stare. 

Countless times.

He’s wanted this for countless nights, countless days even when he’s hidden his urgency for the closeness he yearns for as he pushes her toward her bed, allowing her to lie of her own accord as he follows immediately behind. She becomes caged between his legs and the sheets, and he all but rips the uniform from his torso, and by the time it slips to the floor he’s already completely forgotten about it. 

All he can see is her, the warm hue clinging to her cheeks, her full chest and the brasserie adorning it that still keeps him a step away from uncovering the true extent of her beauty, and the hips that are locked underneath his, released at last when he pulls back enough to submit himself as an offering to her skin that he has yearned to touch for so very long. Dimitri drags his lips down her neck, pressing firm kisses to every inch from her jawline to her navel, and when his lips at last brush against the waistline of her shorts, it’s as if he suddenly feels all of his strain against the front of pants, all at once. It’s furious, aching, demanding attention. 

Dimitri glances up at her in a plea, but before he can so much as utter a word she’s already pulling his hands into a curl around the fabric of her shorts. 

“You truly want this?”

And as if in the voice of the goddess herself, Byleth smiles through her flustered state, just as she did the first time he’d ever seen it, and she says, “Please_,_ _hurry_.”

He feels his self control, already drawn so taught from the strain, snap like ropes severed by a sharp blade, and suddenly he can’t fathom anything but giving her _ exactly _ what she desires. 

His hands jerk, pulling her shorts and the flower-patterned tights that hug her curves down to her knees, and they too become nothing more than a distant memory when they are discarded from her ankles. His hands dive for his own waistline, and he rids himself of the last pieces of clothing that separate him from enacting the carnal urge he feels so deep in his being. 

He can barely think as his instincts kick in, and he tugs her hips level with his, spreading her knees enough to yield him. He reaches down to grip himself then, positioning his head at her entrance. He nearly trembles at the feeling that meets him. 

She’s so warm… and _ soaked_. 

He leans forward, and her hands find his chest, his shoulders; and in a whirl of pounding heartbeats he rocks himself in, in, _ in, _ and it’s not until his hips are pressed fully to the insides of her thighs that he stops. She makes a quiet, breathless sound like she’s never before experienced the euphoria that floods every inch of her now, and her hands clutch the blonde locks at the back of his head, tighter when he rolls his hips firmly against hers. 

“Are you okay?”

The question falls from his lips without so much as a second thought—her comfort is what means the most to him—but the way her brows tremble when she pulls him down for a kiss tells him everything he needs to know. 

His hips jerk gently forward, and with her stifled moan against his lips, he feels her clench around him. 

_ Goddess_, he nearly comes on the spot.

Her fingers comb through his hair, and she shifts beneath him, straightening her spine as if in preparation.

“You don’t need to hold back for me, Dimitri. I can take what you give.”

And it’s like he’s been struck dumb. How many times has her intellect saved them; how many times has she defended him against enemies twice her size using her strength alone? Byleth is anything but easily broken, and he should have remembered that—

His hips move on their own, starting a pace that erases the smile from her lips and makes them fall open in silent captivation. The sound of the winds outside are accompanied by the quick one-two beat of his flesh against hers.

Her moans are quiet, but they vice him in a grip like death when her hands brace his shoulders again. He gets lost in the feeling of her heat, her lovely body that clings to him, the way his thrusts force gasps up through her and out from her lips. He can’t resist any longer, his mouth closing over hers as he finds her wrist and shifts it to the sheets so his fingers can find the spaces between hers.

And _ oh, the way she kisses him. _ It’s as though the only air she can breathe is that from his mouth, and he’s drunk on the taste of her. 

He pushes himself in deep, halting his movement before slipping a hand beneath the small of her back and angling her hips toward him. By the way her breath catches in her throat and she moans, he can’t fathom living in her presence without being able to provide her with this kind of pleasure regularly. The fact that he’s been able to restrain himself at all until this point seems like an impossible lie. Have they truly been deprived from the rapture that is joining their flesh as one?

That thought hangs in his mind as he resumes his pace, but her sounds meet a fever pitch with the angle that they have found. Looking at her now, she appears utterly overwhelmed with her brows upturned, stomach clenched, legs beginning to shake. He speaks against her lips after a kiss she returns, forcing speech around the grunts that leave him. 

“Do you…” His words catch as she contracts around him, so tight that it nearly knocks the wind from his lungs. “Do you need me to slow down?”

A hand he hadn’t noticed before grips his hip with greed, and though she looks like she’s quickly losing the ability to focus her eyes on him, she still pulls him down for another wanting kiss. “_ No, _ the edge is so near—”

And those are all the words he needs to hear to shift her quivering legs farther apart to yield him. How beautiful she is, how enraptured is he, gazing down at her as she takes the shock of his rhythm. His throat has never felt drier as the lump in his throat bobs—she’s the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen in his life, her clavicles pronounced, her lithe neck stretched as she cranes her neck back in the pleasure _ he _ gives.

Her brassiere is the only thing in his way now, and as captivating as she is in it he can’t bear resisting her any longer. His free hand snaps the center gore all the way through the bridge and splays the fabric apart, revealing her flesh to the warm candlelight. When her head tilts at the sound, his lips catch hers again in apology.

“Forgive me, I could not wait—”

She swallows his voice in a consuming kiss once she guides his hand to her breast. He can feel her heartbeat through it, racing, thundering like the hooves of a horse in full gallop, just as his is. Her tongue does nothing to help him.

He thrusts harder, harder, overwhelmed by his desire to chase her completion. Her legs tremble with force now; even despite her quiet disposition he can tell by the way she shakes that it’s only a matter of time, if he could _ just push her there— _

With an unexpected strength, Byleth grabs him and tows him flush against her, sucking in a struggled breath before he feels every muscle in her body seize under him. She cries out with a desperation he’s never before heard from her, and her fingers drag against the flesh of his back with so much need that he’s blinded by her desire. Her warmth clenches around him like a vice, quivering, pulsing, and he himself is nearly met with his end when he buries himself to the hilt and rocks his hips hard to ride out her orgasm.

She clings to him as though her life is faced with the greatest peril that only he can vanquish. 

Her cry fades into sped breaths, even as she continues to twitch against him.

“Dimitri…”

His name has never hung sweeter off of anyone else’s lips. 

He can barely find the words to say as he kisses her with all of the emotions he can’t properly express. But she takes them all in their intensity, her fingers running over the sharp angle of his shoulder blade and hugging him close, and for a moment they just lie there, bodies pressed together and basking in the residual pleasure of her afterglow. 

She only notices that he’s still hard when her legs shift to latch around his hips.

The flush in her face seems to glow warmer. His fingers slide in the spaces between hers again, perfect, like they were made for him. _ No_… instead, _ he _ was made for _ her. _

Her voice comes out somehow more gentle than ever before as his blonde locks tickle her cheek. His other hand finally slides out from its position supporting her back and meets with her brow, brushing the bangs from her eyes. She’s stunning, like all of the world’s beauty sprang to life from her and, in this moment, has returned to its place of origin.

“You haven’t… We can continue, Dimitri. You really don’t have to hold back.”

For the first time, he’s ashamed of the stamina his bloodline grants him. How wonderful it would have been to reach completion together. 

“A-Are you sure? Even in training, I’m quite… insatiable. But before, I nearly…”

He can’t seem to find the right words to say, always stumbling over them and starting sentences in ways he’s not sure he should finish. But her lips accept him, her warmth wrapping around him with the arm that stretches around the back of his neck and over his shoulders, and suddenly he can’t think of anything else but following her lead, just as he does in the academy, just as he does on the battlefield, and just as he wants to continue to do for the rest of his days. 

His hips pull back, giving her a fair warning before pushing back in a second time. He swears she feels swollen, but it doesn’t stop her moan against his lips, her eyes closing with what he can only assume to be ecstasy considering how she sounds.

Dimitri falls back into a rhythm that staccatos her breath. She takes him without complaint, clutching his hand, only whispering at last—

“Do you love me?”

The entire room goes cold. 

The candle is suddenly snuffed out without so much as a sound, and it plunges the space into a darkness like death that chills him to the very core of his being. 

Dimitri tries to move his mouth to ask if she wants the candle relit, but he can’t speak. His body is frozen in place, and he has no control over even the fingers in between hers. 

“Dimitri…?”

She looks up at him, and the lighthearted pleasure in her face is washed away like the warmth from the room. Shadows seethe and slither along the walls. Something violent and furtive stirs within, and he can’t stop it. 

_ He can’t stop it— _

The body that is no longer his pulls from her, and it’s like he’s a prisoner in his own form, watching someone else puppet his flesh with unseen strings that he cannot sever, no matter how hard he tries. He wants to shout as he watches his own hands flip her body roughly onto her stomach. He’s seen this all before, two years ago when he quelled that rebellion in the western Kingdom. Blood stains his mind, the sound of his own voice so detached from his own sanity ringing in sick, twisted laughter echoes off the walls of his consciousness.

_ Get away from me, Professor. Get away, _ ** _RUN_**—

But nothing aside from that high-pitched chuckle leaves his lips, demented, like a hyena cackling at its prey upon which it will force an excruciating death. He tugs her hips up, forcing her onto her hands and knees.

When he reenters her, there is no mercy to be found. 

“You think I’m _ capable _ of love?”

The moan that had hung on her voice quickly morphs into gasps of anguish, and he watches as her hands clutch the pillow so hard it might actually tear with the strain.

“_Dimitri, what are you doing? _”

His jarring thrusts are audible, so hard that the frame of the bed creaks in complaint. The wet slap of flesh fills the air, rapid, greedy, unforgiving, and despite all of their battles standing side by side it’s the first time he’s ever heard her cry out in pain.

“_Please stop_.”

He takes. And he takes. He spreads her legs wider with his knees and he _ takes_, even as one of her hands darts back to his grasp on her hip in an attempt to push it away. 

“Yes, Professor, I love you in the twisted way I call my own, and yet you _ never _ acknowledge me. What should I do, other than this?”

He forces her hips down now, one hand on her shoulder and pushing her flat against the sheets. He adjusts, mounting her again and putting the full weight and power of his body into his thrusts. He swears he can hear her bones creak under the strain, but he will not stop.

“I’m going to make you ** _mine_**. I **have** to have you. I ** _will not_ ** lose you too.”

Her face is contorted with fear, cheek pressed to the pillow, and he watches her squeeze her eyes so tight as she bears the pain that tears roll down the bridge of her nose and permeate into the cotton beneath. His haggard breath comes out in snarling pants, like a wild beast, like a demon, desecrating, defiling, perverting all that is sacred to him.

One more bone-breaking thrust and all the pressure welled up inside snaps explosively, his seed filling all that he’s violated———

Dimitri jerks upward in a cold sweat. It’s dark in his room, save for the first hints of dawn that tap their gentle hands ever so against his windows. 

His heart is racing, and no matter how much he looks around the space and tries to settle back into what is reality, guilt coats the entirety of his soul like he’s been dipped in tar and left to dry. 

The Prince looks down at his hands, and they’re shaking violently, to the point he can’t even get them under control by clenching them as tight as he can bear. Horror meets him when his gaze passes his fingers, and his blood turns to ice solidified excruciatingly in his veins when he uses those trembling hands to tug the sheets from his hips. 

He’s fully erect, tenting and straining against the fabric of his pants.

Guilt hits him like an armored horse on the battlefield, knocking the wind clear from his lungs and making it hard to so much as _ try _ to draw breath. He curls into himself, his nails digging into his scalp and clinging in his hair in a way that hurts, in a way that he _ deserves. _

His voice cracks, shuddering, collapsing under the weight of itself like a dilapidated castle destroyed by siege and war. 

“_ Goddess, I’m a _ ** _monster._ **”

For countless minutes, he can barely move. He merely sits, coiled like a miserable beggar on the streets. Even as the sun rises steadily over the horizon and kisses the mountains Garreg Mach sits upon, the rays do not meet him, illuminating all in the room but him. He’s forsaken and undeserving of redemption.

Alone in the shadow, just as he has been for four years.

* * *

Days pass. 

But it doesn’t get any easier. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Every class is like a cruel knife in the gut. Having to sit in his seat at the front of the class right in front of her as she passes him, pacing as she often does to teach, and catching a whiff of that perfume to which he somehow clung so hard that it appeared in his dreams—_ no _ … his _ nightmares_.

Her.

Everything about her now makes his heart race in fear of himself. In fear of what he’s terrified of subjecting her to, what he’s capable of doing. Unrest stirs inside of him every time she steps too close, every time she calls on him for an answer. Dimitri knows well that she’s not picking on him now that he’s avoiding her—and he _ knows _ she feels that he’s avoiding her—as she’s always been one to encourage equal participation in class. The perfect professor, treating each of her students just as everyone else, giving all equal opportunity to learn, engage, and ask questions. Before, he had almost grown to resent that out of hidden jealousy in wanting so very much to draw her eye and stand out, to earn her praise, though he for the most part was able to put those feelings away and realize just how irrational he was being. He loved his classmates. Thought incredibly highly of them. Of course they deserved to learn from someone such as she. 

But now, he wishes she did not treat them all equally for the exact opposite reason. Why can’t she just ignore him? Why can’t she see how desperately he wants to get away from that classroom every moment he’s there, and how quick he is to dodge into the shadows and make his escape when she’s nearby in any of the other facilities in the Monastery? 

Doesn’t she know what he’s capable of?

_ No, _ ** _she doesn’t,_ ** he reminds himself. 

Only Felix was there to see what he had become in the west Kingdom rebellion. No one else knows, and even when gossip had gotten back to him that Felix warned her not to trust him, the next day she still treated him as she always did. 

_ Professor, you have always been too kind for your own good. _

He prays it won’t be her undoing. He can’t bear for it to be so, especially not with him.

For two weeks, he avoids her gaze, only answering when called on but giving no more of a response than needed. Instead, he just buries his head in his books, hunched over like normal in that way that makes him look like he’s in pain from the strain on his neck, but his quill barely moves on parchment. For two weeks, he leaves class as soon as they are dismissed. He’s the first one out the door, and the sight of his back while leaving as his mantle catches his flurry of rushed movement imprints itself into Byleth’s mind as though someone brands it with hot iron.

But she isn’t the only one who has noticed. The rest of the Blue Lions discern it from the first day his mannerisms change. Usually, he’s one of the last to leave. He lingers, always asking their Professor if she needs help clearing the board, or perhaps with carrying the assignments of the class that seems to be ever growing in size back to her room to grade. They often find him with her, and though he plays it down as just being his responsibility as the head of the house, it’s no secret that they truly enjoy each other’s company. For there to be such an abrupt change… 

Felix stays behind one afternoon instead of heading out to the training grounds like usual, and as expected, he has no time for small talk. 

“You’re going to continue to let him give you the cold shoulder? What even happened between you two, anyway? He’s a mess at the training grounds. It’s like he can barely even hold his sword or lance properly, and his form is an embarrassment to everyone here. Surely you know something. He used to follow you around like a lost dog.”

Byleth’s brows pull into a deep furrow, but she can’t give him the answer he wants. “I… don’t know. I only noticed it two weeks ago when he came in one morning. But the previous night… we had eaten together at the dining hall with Sylvain. Nothing happened. He still seemed alright then…”

She had noticed how his form had fallen apart since that time… but without a battle assignment coming up just yet from the Archbishop, she had tried to let it slide to give him a chance to heal from whatever was plaguing him.

Felix sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose out of apparent irritation. “Seems like that boar is coming undone again. Remember that warning I gave you before, when you first became our Professor? I’ll say it again, only this once: he is an animal, nothing more. Take care he doesn’t chew you up and spit you out. If you push him, he’ll show what he truly is, and by then it’ll be too late. I would make your next move very carefully, or if you’re smart, just avoid him altogether.”

Those words echo in her mind even as he leaves, and suddenly the room feels that much colder.

Byleth has never once doubted him, even when she could see the darkness that lurked beneath the surface as so far back as when she first met him in Remire Village. But it’s the first she’s seen of him like this, and she’s sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that his discomfort has something to do with her. 

A heavy breath leaves her lips, grasping the stack of new assignments she has to grade. She remembers the smile Dimitri always bore picking it up for her, no matter how heavy it was, and she wishes with so much heart that she can somehow bring it back.

No, wishing is not enough. For all the times he made her smile, _ she must. _

The following day, it starts as all within the past two weeks have. Class continues. The curriculum expands on that of the previous day, but still, Dimitri barely seems to be paying attention despite how he hunches over his notes like a dragon guarding invaluables. She leaves him be as she has, making her rounds around the classroom for responses. As she expected, he doesn’t say much when asked about the proper use of catapults on small military bases, but she moves on and calls on Dedue, who is also visibly worried about the state of his Prince. As it would seem, Dimitri hasn’t talked to him much either. 

She takes them to the training ground for an hour of sparring before releasing them for a lunch break, and when they return, it’s only a couple hours more of study before she hands back their written assignments from yesterday. 

Dimitri tries not to notice the scent of her perfume as she walks by. He still fails. His report is placed before him, face down as it always is to guard against prying eyes—yet another example of her compassion out of the countless many—but when he turns it over he finds a grade he _ should _have expected. 

C.

For a straight-S student, it’s a blow. He supposes he should add it to the growing number of assignments he’s received in that grade and enjoy it while he can. It’s only a matter of time before he can focus so little on class that his grades drop to a solid F.

But before he can deliberate too long on the sole letter that plagues him, his eyes scan to the right to find her distinct handwriting where the parchment had been previously blank. 

_ If you can, please stay after class. _

His body goes cold, as if the fireplace that burns behind him had suddenly gone out and a winter breeze heralding imminent suffering swept in the classroom doors and bathed him in ice. 

He knows he can’t refuse. In the end, there’s little she could ask of him that he could ever turn away, even when he’s like this. And for her to request it of him in such a considerate and private way, without drawing attention to him in front of the others when he can already feel their worry and scorn… how can he possibly shut down her effort?

He’s so caught up in his own panic that he barely notices when she announces that class is dismissed. The others rise. When he doesn’t, he feels Felix’s gaze slice him like a dagger before he too turns to depart for the training ground. 

Dimitri can already hear his voice, cutting deep with unrelenting hatred. _ “Tread carefully, boar. I will cut you down myself if you harm our Professor.” _

As if he’ll let himself get that far. That’s the whole point of all of this, isn’t it?

Mercedes leaves the class last, casting a worried glance at the both of them, but Byleth merely nods to reassure her. She waves and rounds the corner, and at last the two of them are left alone. The silence that is left is unnerving.

The _ click clack _ of her heels against the stone as she approaches his desk is even worse.

“Dimitri… you’re not in trouble.”

And with that line, half of his tension releases. He wishes it didn’t. He wishes she would just be angry with him for treating her so coldly and be done with him, instead of holding on to a person who doesn’t deserve her patience and warmth. That, at least, would make some sense to him.

“I just wanted to check in with you,” she continues. “These past two weeks, you’ve been… You haven’t been yourself.”

He wants to say that himself is _ exactly _ what he has been. That side of him has been a part of him for four years, something that no matter how hard he tries he can never tear out of his being. But when his eyes meet with the new emerald of hers, he finds himself at a loss. He can’t speak. Can’t explain. Can’t expose himself to a person that deserves to see what he _ truly is _ the least. 

Byleth quickly realizes she’s putting too much pressure on him. This classroom must feel like a prison to someone already struggling to be here and in her presence. She relents, turning toward the aisle beside his desk. 

“Do you want to take a walk? It’s been a while since we did.”

Her footsteps move towards the door, echoing off the tall, stone walls of the classroom. Her heart eases when she hears his follow.

The trip is a quiet one, as the sounds of the birds chirping overhead blend with the cold afternoon breeze. Winter is still here; she can feel the nip on her skin, especially as the sun has begun its descent back toward the horizon, later each day with the coming season. 

He can’t help but gaze at her now, when he knows she isn’t looking. Even in the midst of such inner turmoil, something as simple as her lifting her head to the soon-arriving sunset and watching her mint hair sway in the wind somehow eases him. He’s viced again by the beauty he finds in her very existence, something he had tried with some success these past two weeks to ignore. But just as simple as that, she’s managed to captivate him again.

Oh, he hates how weak he is. 

They pass through the hallway across the end of the reception hall, and her pace slows as she comes to the balcony overlooking the bridge and the mountains. He joins her at her side, just like before. The air of familiarity is… comforting, especially when there’s no one around but a couple knights at their posts.

She looks over the view, over the cathedral on the next mountain, and she shivers when the next breeze washes over them. His gut reaction is to ask if she wants to return inside, and he’s reminded that all of this is for him. Even if he were to question it, he’s sure she wouldn’t agree, at least not yet. 

Her gentle voice rises over the sound of the winds. A pegasus and its rider soar in the distance, disappearing from view as her eyes follow where they must have gone.

“I know something has been bothering you… You don’t have to tell me anything, so please don’t feel like you need to, but I wanted to know if it was something I had done to make you feel so uncomfortable.”

Her gaze meets with his for just a moment, and in that trice he sees the depths of her uncertainty, her guilt. It hits him like an axe to the shoulder, jarring and sudden, and he already blames himself before the eye contact breaks and she looks back out over the view.

He’s selfish without end; how he _can’t stand_ the depravity of his own actions.

His eyes then meet with the sight of his hands hidden away in vambraces; he can still feel the way they gripped her flesh in his nightmare. Finally, he finds the words to say.

“It was nothing you had done at all, Professor. I’m… sorry for making you feel that it was. What I’m dealing with now is entirely my own fault, and as such it’s no one else’s burden but mine to carry.”

The quiet fills in between them as those words settle. He begins to agonize over what she may be thinking before she speaks again. 

“Is there anything I can do to help ease that burden?”

_ Stay away from me. _

But those words won’t find his lips. He struggles for any that will, knowing how most of anything he could say now would end up making her feel worse. But he trusts her, and he’s never gone wrong by placing his faith in her before. 

And when she looks at him again, her eyes snare him and don’t release, and he can’t help but speak what has truly been weighing on his mind. It tumbles out of him before he can even manage to restrain his tongue.

“What would you do if you were haunted by something you had done in the past… something which you were deeply ashamed of… and you were afraid of making the same mistake—_no… _ doing something even _ worse_—in the future?”

Byleth’s eyes search his, trying to find more context to his words, but instead she discovers the leagues of his suffering. In those cerulean hues contain a pit like a well, extending forever deeper, so long that she can’t even tell how far it goes. Until now, he’s always hidden it under a becoming smile and princely attitude, but something in him shakes her to the very depths of her unbeating heart, something that makes her want to reach out and grab him, no matter how far she must dive.

“During my time as a mercenary… I did a lot of things I wasn’t proud of. Killed a lot of people that may have had no reason at all to die. Even now, I look back and know, had it not been for me, they may have gotten away and lived a happy life. We spoke of this before—I took no pleasure in killing, but I did it nonetheless because I thought I had to. After coming to the Monastery and being given the opportunity to pass my knowledge to the Blue Lions… I think I couldn’t go back to that life. But when I see one of you in danger on the battlefield, those instincts just kick in.” 

She pauses, gathering her thoughts as she looks out over the distance. The tangerine rays catch her features in a way that makes him unable to look at anything else, unable to focus on a single thing but her. 

“But I know those instincts don’t define me as a person anymore. Now, when I fight, I do it to protect, not for gold. When I wield my sword, it’s not for myself or my father, but for the safety of all of us. In the same way… even if you’re afraid of what you have done before, and even if you still have those thoughts, your decisions now are what define you. Not your past mistakes or what you may be capable of. And though those possibilities may always scare us… maybe it’s the mind’s method of a warning, keeping us from becoming our worst.”

Byleth gives room for that thought to permeate, her gaze tracing the rivers far below like she can bend down and touch them. And when her head at last turns back towards him, what she finds isn’t the same expression of regret and avoidance. Instead, it’s complete and utter shock.

He can barely find the connection to his mouth enough that he can so much as move it, much less speak. With words as profound as those, how can he? For two weeks, he could not find an inkling of solace from the sins that stained him, and somehow within only minutes of speaking, she had managed to lift the heavy curse from his shoulders as easily as if she were the Goddess herself with all of her divine forgiveness.

His hand clasps over his heart, and he does the only thing he can to express the extent of his gratitude, bowing completely from the hips and remaining with his head stooped before her even as he speaks. 

“Professor… From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. You truly never cease to aid me when I am in need, and I cannot express how grateful I am… Again, I am in your debt.”

Her hands hesitate, finding the bow unnecessary and feeling tempted to stop him before he finally rises to his full height. “I don’t say that to you as your Professor, Dimitri. Merely one person to another.”

Her generosity overwhelms him, dissolving the guilt that lies most heavily upon him like light strangling the darkness with warmth. 

_ Merely one person to another? _

He silently wishes a day like that, one without titles to bind them apart, one where they can merely be the same as they are now—_as just two people_—will someday come.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! It's my first time writing or publishing something like this so I'd love to hear some opinions, especially when the idea got such good reception on twitter polls.


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